


Ways and Means

by Stakebait



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:06:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stakebait/pseuds/Stakebait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor doesn't know what he wants. Wesley gives it to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ways and Means

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doyle-sb4](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=doyle-sb4).



  
Connor is crouched like a noble savage from an old Western, sniffing his closet. Wesley doesn't have the energy to be surprised.

"Yes?" he says. He drops his mail -- circulars, mostly, and checks, Lilah's Demonic Voice of the Month club -- on the table, his coins in a leather-lined tray.

"Your men are weak." Defiant stare, crossed arms. Amazing how like Angel a thin-chested, pouty boy can be. That explains the lack of a broken lock, at least. A broken minion, instead. Equally replaceable.

Wesley shrugs. "They'll do." They are, in fact. Connor is astute to notice. Competant, certainly, intelligent, well-trained, well armed, and weak. All part of the plan. Strong men are arrogant, stupid. And rare. Break one, lose one, and your whole machine is useless. Wesley doesn't propose to make that -- or any -- old mistake again.

"Can I help you?"

"Justine was here." Connor flings this at his feet as if he expects Wesley to be surprised. Wesley stifles the urge to point out, with some irritation, that it is his closet. Oh yes. Definitely related to Angel.

"It was some time ago," Wesley observes mildly. The bars are gone, or Wesley might now be dealing with the bore of an enraged teenager instead of a petulant one. The specially reinforced door frame they'd slotted into is there still: Wesley thinks, not for the first time, that for a tactical genius Connor isn't very bright.

"How much time?"

Wesley, well past kindness in these latter days, abandons patience as a strategy with some relief. His voice is a flexible instrument: it cuts like wire. "Thirteen days."

"Where did she go?"

"Left."

"You don't care!"

"No." Wesley moves to pour himself a glass of wine.

Connor looks arrested by this unvarnished agreement.

"I could kill you," he offers unconvincingly, and for one mad moment, Wesley considers taking him up on it.

"You might," Wesley says, "thank me instead."

"For what? You're nothing to me." Definitely pouting now. It makes Wesley think of canes and uniforms and doors locked till morning.

"I took you from Angel. I made it possible for Holtz and Justine to claim you. If you hate him as much as you say, you ought to be grateful."

"It's all your fault, then."

Wesley is, abruptly, too tired for this. "You're a very confused young man. Go on back to Angel, snarl at each other some more. Go sniff after Justine, or sniff around Cordy. Just not here." Ah, a hit there. How well he knew the stiffened spine of outraged priggish lust. Thank you, father.

"You brought him back. It was over."

"You don't want that. Over is a stake, not a box." Wesley knocks back the chilled white wine, swirls cool water in the glass and sets it in the sink.

"Did he do this?" Connor is just there, far too close to him, with no visible movement in between. Mesmerized eyes hot on his scar, crude huge eager puppy fingers too large for his wrists.

"She did."

"Justine was a good woman."

"Justine was a pathetic excuse for a woman," Wesley enunciates distinctly. "She was a good tool."

"Like you are!" Connor accuses.

"I'm a better one." Wesley smiles. "He used a pillow. I was in hospital at the time."

Connor sneers. "Some hero."

"Yes. He is." Wesley lifts the bottle towards Connor, who doesn't seem to know what to do with it. What a clean cut American little psychopath he is. No drinking before ending the world.

"What have you come for," Wesley continues, "do you even know? Information, confirmation of your pet prejudices, someone to argue with? I don't even care to play this game with your father. And he's better at it."

Wesley pauses just long enough to let Connor's lips part, then starts talking again before the words can emerge. "More practice, you see. Or did you just want to gawk at someone lonelier than you?"

He suppose he does owe this boy something. Less than an apology, more than a bullet, or perhaps that should be the other way around. Wesley thinks back to studying rites of passage. He doesn't have time to bother with fishhooks or chanting, and he doesn't have a goat handy. "I can get you laid, if you like. Or drunk. Or you can get out."

Connor looks painfully young. "The -- the first one."

Wesley checks his watch. "Of course. Lilah will be here soon." And wouldn't she be livid when she found herself riding the son of her archnemesis. This should prove decidedly entertaining.

Connor shakes his deplorable haircut. "Not -- no. You."

The great Lilah Morgan, turned down by a teenage boy. How the mighty had fallen. He was really going to enjoy telling her this story. While taking her from behind, Wesley thinks, over her desk at the office, during one of those interminable conference calls.

"All right." Wesley's voice is calm. "Take your clothes off. Turn around."

Connor is tense, vibrating with it. Of course, you don't turn your back on an enemy. Wesley runs a fingernail down his spine. Yes, indeed, it could have been a blade. It still could. He leans forward to whisper in Connor's ear, his breath moving wisps of too-long hair. "You know he'd do this for you, if you asked. Vampires don't much care for incest taboos."

"I hate you!" Connor's voice blazes. But he stands with his legs spread, automatic as breathing. Wesley wonders how often Holtz used him this way. Connor's well trained. He's hard as only a seventeen year old boy can be, but there's no presumptuous hand to knock away. Wesley doesn't bother to take his pants down. Connor doesn't bother to scream.

Connor licks the scar, afterward. So Wesley lets him keep the key.


End file.
